MSC Meraviglia: Food Review + Menus

My preconceptions about MSC’s food

Before cruising with MSC I was a little apprehensive. I had read a lot of reviews about the food which were less than complimentary. Having said that, I enjoyed the food and I didn’t experience any of the bad things that I had read about online. The food was certainly more ‘Mediterranean’ than what I am used to eating at home but that’s kind of to be expected from an Italian company cruising around the Mediterranean.

Where did we eat?

Main Restaurant

For the majority of our evening meals, we ate in the Main Restaurant. Our assigned main restaurant was called L’Olivo Doro. The actual Restaurant was nice enough but it definitely was nothing amazing. Read my full MSC Meraviglia ship review here to learn more about all of the Resturants/Bars.

Buffet

We also ate a number of lunches in the buffet but never ate here for dinner. We also grabbed a few evening snacks from the buffet before bed. I really appreciated the buffet being open later than 9 pm. I cruised on Royal Caribbean recently and the fact that the buffet closed at 9 pm every day was really annoying.

Butchers Cut

Butchers cut is a speciality restaurant and we ate here twice for free! We matched our NCL platinum latitudes status to MSC’s black voyages and this gave us a meal for two in a speciality restaurant (per black card). So, I took my brother to Butchers cut and a couple of nights later he took me!

Not much of a view from this restaurant sadly. Makes me miss the waterfront from NCL ships… gorgeous restaurant though and the staff were really nice.

The food

Main dining room

The food in the main dining room was good. The portions were not huge but I never found myself hungry, there is always an opportunity for more food when you are cruising so I don’t really feel as though this is a big problem. I had a variety of meat dishes as well as some brilliant vegetarian/vegan options.

The food wasn’t the type of food that I would usually eat at home but I really enjoyed that. I do like to try new foods and a cruise is a perfect opportunity. All the photos below are of main dishes, as you can see they aren’t the biggest!

The next photo is of our Christmas dinner. We boarded the Meraviglia on Christmas day and disembarked on new years eve. It wasn’t what I would call a traditional roast… haha.

I didn’t really take many photos of the desserts because for me they were just fruit, stupid dairy intolerance! Here’s a photo of my dads though, they were pretty nice (so I hear).

The buffet

There is a huge variety of food available in the buffet. The majority seemed to be made up of pasta, pizza and bread but there was also a grill section and an ethnic corner which I enjoyed. They had hot dogs/burgers too. I don’t eat dairy but had no problem finding dairy-free options in the buffet, the only problem was dessert which was rarely dairy free but I am pretty used to that.

There was plenty of food around the buffet for breakfast too. But, this is what I chose to eat every day. I am a girl of simple tastes! Those little baguettes were incredible though.

Butchers cut

The food in butchers cut was really really good. The portions were absolutely HUGE which made a change from the food in the main dining room. The starters were definitely bigger than some of the mains that I had had in the main dining room. I had the worlds most amazing giant melted cookie for dessert. The fact that it was free made it even yummier.

The menu is absolutely huge. If you are eating for free as part of the black perks you need to order from the dining experience part of the menu which we did.

Other snacks around the ship

We spent quite a lot of time in the sky lounge watching the world go by. On a number of occasions they brought us some little snacks, tapas almost! I’d love to tell you what these are, but I honestly don’t know. Even at the time of eating I had no idea what they were…

General thoughts

I was never hungry onboard the MSC Meraviglia. The food portions were smaller than I would have at home and I certainly ate more vegetables than I would usually at home, but that definitely isn’t a bad thing! If you are considering a cruise onboard the Meraviglia but are worried having read negative reviews online I would strongly urge you to ignore those negative nellies and try MSC.

To check out more MSC Meraviglia menus click here.